Tuesdays at 9:20pm on ABC TV

Vietnam - Tobacco Smuggling

Broadcast: 05/09/2001

Reporter: David Hardaker

LEAD STORYSERIES 11EPISODE 10

Transcript

Kenneth Clarke hopes to lead Britain's Tory party, but his campaign has been dogged by allegations arising from his other job, as Deputy Chairman of British American Tobacco, the world's second largest tobacco company. BAT stands accused of deliberately organising a massive smuggling operation into Vietnam to force the Government there to let BAT have access to the huge local market.

Investigative reporter David Hardaker has obtained devastating internal documents that reveal the company was not only aware of the smuggling but organised it through it's Asian distributor.

Hardaker: "Do you acknowledge that this memo is telling you that BAT has been ' brilliantly successful' in managing smuggling operations around the world for decades?"Clarke: "Well I don't believe it's accurate although that's the allegation the letter makes.."

The lack of ethics of the tobacco multinationals has already been exposed in Canada, where a similar allegation has been proved against RJR Macdonald. With one third of all cigarettes sold worldwide being smuggled, it's almost inconceivable that the tobacco companies know nothing about it. Kenneth Clarke will have to face some embarrassing questions when the British Government inquiry into smuggling questions him about the internal memos later this year.

For Vietnam the fine details of the sting are of less concern than the devastating impact of smoking on their population. In the next decade seven million Vietnamese, or ten per cent of the population, will die from smoking. Meanwhile the tobacco multinationals pursue their profits by fair means or foul.

"they've already rationalised that their products are going to kill half their consumers so it's not a big step to say, well I'm going to sell products that kill people I am going to do it through smuggling as well." Eric Legressly, Canadian lawyer and expert on BAT.